Patriots (

20.5) at
Hawks (

23.5)

Xandamere is one of the most respected and consistently dominant Showdown players in DFS, breaking down strategy thoughts and rules for every TNF, SNF, and MNF game

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

2026 football season LET’S GO! I’ve been waiting to write this article for months and here we are – the first game of the season has the Patriots visiting the Seahawks for a Super Bowl rematch. We’ve got a 44.5 total game with Seattle favored by 3.5. Both teams were elite last year (they went to the Super Bowl, duh) – Seattle 2nd in the league on offense at 29.2 points per game and with the league’s best defense allowing just 16.9 points per game (fun fact – only one other team has allowed under 17 points per game since 2019), while the Patriots were 8th in scoring at 26.5 points per game and 3rd on defense, allowing 17.9 points per game. If you add up each team’s points scored per game and points allowed per game you get 45 – basically the total of this game. Feels like a bit of a lazy way to get to a game total, and personally I’d lean under, but…it’s Week 1. Remember that we know very, very little in Week 1, and early in the season is the best time to be contrarian if you have strong takes.

SEATTLE

We’ll start with Seattle, where the backfield has lost Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet is still working his way back from a torn ACL. That leaves the backfield in the hands of rookie Jadarian Price, journeyman George Holani, and offseason signee Emanuel Wilson. Price should be the lead back, but beat reporter news is whispering that Holani is going to be heavily involved. At $7,200 Price is a reasonable play – especially in builds predicated on Seattle winning, which would increase his touch projection. I think 10-12 carries is a floor for Price with upside for 14-16, but the lack of expected receiving work means he’s going to need some big yardage (tough against New England’s D) or a touchdown to matter. Holani and Wilson are just $4,200 and $4,000, respectively – I think Wilson likely doesn’t get much work (especially because he was hurt in the preseason and only returned to practice this last weekend, but Holani could easily see enough work to matter. I haven’t run ownership yet, but I do worry about Holani picking up a lot of it depending on how industry point projections shake out – but if he’s under the 15-20% range, that seems like a strong spot to take an overweight position. Overall, given Seattle’s status as a home favorite and the reasonable prices of their running backs, the odds seem good that a Seattle RB is on the winning roster if the Seahawks win the game.

In the passing game, Seattle’s offense was wildly efficient last year with QB Sam Darnold only attempting more than 34 passes twice the entire season. Part of that was of course their defense controlling game scripts, but this is, overall, a great defense and a run-first offense. One important factor that we can’t quantify is the loss of offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, who per our team previews the OWS team has as a top-five playcaller in the game. Newcomer Brian Fleury has literally never called an offensive play in his career – it’s entirely plausible that we could see a step back from the Seattle offense, either for all or at least the start of the season, as they adjust to the new OC. That said – we have to view Sam Darnold as legit at this point in his career and WR1 Jaxon Smith-Ngjiba is an easy top-five receiver in the league. This is a horrible matchup for the Seattle passing game against what is likely to be the league’s best secondary, but JSN is still the overall strongest skill position player in this Showdown. With salaries being loose in Week 1 (only two players at $10k+ salary), JSN is going to be incredibly owned, but it’s hard to make a case against him. After that it gets shaky. WR2 Cooper Kupp is getting old and broke 15 DK points just once all of last year. Midseason acquisition Rashid Shaheed can get there on just a couple of catches, but New England was exceptional against the deep ball last season. I would personally prefer Shaheed to Kupp, as my general preference when picking players against elite defenses is to go with players who don’t need a lot of catches to generate good scores. WR4 Tory Horton looked promising to start last season, but he’s hurt currently – we just found out a couple of days ago that it’s a hamstring injury that has been lingering since mid-August. He got in a limited practice on Sunday (I’m writing this on Monday) – if he plays he’s a viable value option at $2,800, but I think odds are he won’t play. If he doesn’t, Montorie Foster would be a very viable punt option at $200 – and I don’t think his ownership would get that out of hand given how soft salaries are. Tight end AJ Barner had a solid 2025 season – he’s not an especially explosive receiver but he did score seven touchdowns and was 2nd on the team with 18 red zone targets. He’s my favorite secondary pass catcher on the Seahawks after JSN. Finally, TE2 Elijah Arroyo made a few really nice plays last year before getting hurt – he’s not likely to play a ton of snaps, but he has good per-target upside, and if Horton misses we could potentially see more of Arroyo on the field. I would limit playing Arroyo and Foster together, as I think they cannibalize each other’s ceiling.